Founded | 1948 |
---|---|
Defunct | 2000 |
Fate | Merged with Ocean Group plc |
Successor | Exel |
Headquarters | , England |
Key people | Christopher Bland (Chairman) Gerry Murphy (CEO) |
The National Freight Corporation was a major British transport business between 1948 and 2000. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and at one time, as NFC plc, was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
The company was established in 1948 as British Road Services (BRS). It was the road transport company formed by the nationalisation of Britain's road haulage industry, under the British Transport Commission, as a result of the Transport Act 1947. [1]
From 1963, the company was administered by the Transport Holding Company and had four main operating areas: British Road Services, BRS Parcels, Pickfords and Containerway & Roadferry.
On 1 January 1969, it was renamed the National Freight Corporation. [2] [3] [4] On the same date a 51% share in Freightliner was transferred from the British Railways Board (BRB). [5] This was transferred back to the BRB on 1 August 1978. [6] [7] [8] [9]
In 1980, the assets of the National Freight Corporation were transferred to the National Freight Company. [10] [11] In 1982, the company was sold to its employees as the National Freight Consortium in one of the first privatisations of state-owned industry. [12] [13] The new company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and subsequently became NFC plc.
BRS Parcels was rebranded as Roadline and was sold in a management buy-out as Lynx Express in 1997. [1] NFC disposed of Pickfords in 1999 to Allied Van Lines. [14]
In 2000, the company merged with Ocean Group plc to form Exel plc. [14]
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies, and was privatised in stages between 1994 and 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand name British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate railways in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
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The British Rail Class 70 is a Co-Co mainline freight GE PowerHaul locomotive series manufactured by General Electric in Erie, Pennsylvania. They are operated in the United Kingdom by Freightliner and Colas Rail. These locomotives replaced the Class 59 as having the highest tractive effort of any Co-Co Diesel locomotive in use in the United Kingdom when they were introduced.
John Anthony Harvey is a British entrepreneur and logistician whose seminal contribution was to lead the intercontinental logistics service provider Tibbett & Britten Group plc during a 20-year period of diversification and growth. He is an Ambassador, and former Chairman of the Trustees, of Transaid Worldwide - the international transport charity. Since 2004 he has Chaired The Keswick Enterprises Group Limited, a UK-based private equity investor.
The railway network in Great Britain has been used to transport goods of various types and in varying volumes since the early 19th century. Network Rail, which owns and maintains the network, aims to increase the amount of goods carried by rail. In 2015–16 Britain's railways moved 17.8 billion net tonne kilometres, a 20% fall compared to 2014–15. Coal accounted for 13.1% of goods transport in Britain, down considerably from previous years. There are no goods transported by railway in Northern Ireland.
Intermodal railfreight in Great Britain is a way of transporting containers between ports, inland ports and terminals in England, Scotland and Wales, by using rail to do so. Initially started by British Rail in the 1960s, the use of containers that could be swapped between different modes of transport goes back to the days of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway.